Electronics

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a tiny new sensor that can be carried around on a small drone or even the back of an insect – and then dropped on demand to track the environment for years at a time.

Silicon has been the material of choice for electronics for decades, but it’s beginning to bump up against efficiency limits. Now engineers at UC Berkeley have created metallic graphene nanoribbons, which can make wires for all-carbon electronics.

Researchers have developed a kind of electronic “invisible ink” that can alert users to unauthorized tampering with a device. When the chip is exposed to light it will erase information printed on it, making it clear that someone’s opened the box.

Scientists have developed what they claim is the smallest particle sensor in the world, designed specifically to detect harmful pollutants and offer a highly localized picture of air quality by being integrated into wearables and mobile devices.

Although TV professionals commonly use wireless microphones when shooting on location, decent-quality units are generally too pricey for use by regular folks using smartphones. The creators of the Hooke Lav mic, however, have set out to change that.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a new type of wearable electric generator, which harvests energy from the wind as you walk. The team says it’s low cost and efficient enough to power small sensors and LEDs.

By putting a new spin on decades-old thermoelectric technology, scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a tiny microscopic cooling device they describe as the "world’s smallest refrigerator."

A typical sheet of paper or cardboard is neither waterproof, interactive or able to harvest energy, but an innovative new printing technology developed at Purdue University can make it all of the above.

Earlier in the year, LG Display showed its vision for the aircraft cabin of the future, which included transparent OLED partitions. Now the company has installed the technology in subway train windows.

Boring old bricks might not seem like something that can really be made high-tech, but researchers keep proving us wrong. Now, a team has found a way to turn bricks into energy storage devices, using them to power a green LED in a proof of concept study.

Perovskite is emerging as a promising material for solar cells, but it has some durability problems. Now, engineers have developed a new electrode that could make them more stable, using a protective layer of "graphene armor."

A new type of data storage system could be denser, smaller, faster and more energy efficient than silicon chips. The new method involves encoding data in sliding stacks of two-dimensional layers of metals.